


Dearest Mother

by SnakeWrangler4



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Blood and Gore, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnakeWrangler4/pseuds/SnakeWrangler4
Summary: Sometimes writing a letter is what helps get you through a war.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: Calamity's Advent





	Dearest Mother

Dearest Mother,

I am writing to you now to tell you of my first assignment as a proper soldier of Grado. I know not where you are now, nor if you are even still alive. But General Duessel taught me that one of the best ways to cope after a day of fighting was to write down your feelings, your experiences, and to keep in mind those you love, those you are fighting for. And so I write to you, Mother, in hopes that imagining I am talking to you again will bring me comfort. 

Or maybe I am doing so as a sort of penance for what I have done today. I just know that you were always there for me, and wherever you are, you can find it within yourself to still be proud of me. Though, if you are well and truly gone, perhaps it is for the better that your last memories of me are prior to my enlistment for the Grado army.

Today, my unit was given its first assignment. It seemed simple when we received it. We were to deploy to a nearby village and formally bring it under Grado occupation. Direct orders from King Vigarde himself according to our captain. There have been whispers among the higher ups of a coming war, so I’ve been told, so this was likely a pre-emptive measure to fortify our outlying territory. Resistance was unlikely; the village had already been informed of the coming occupation a week prior. Mother, we… We lived in such a village. We were never mistreated by the Grado royalty; what reason would we have to put anything but our utmost faith in our soldiers? Now that feels so long ago...

Soon the morning of the march came. We felt ready. We knew what monstrosities called this land their home. We trained, we drilled, day in and day out it felt. And yet all the training in the world could only prepare us so much for the horrors we encountered.

It was a mountain pass on the way to the village. The captain insisted we had to take it as a shortcut lest we arrive too late. It was risky, he reasoned, but he had faith in us. It was that faith that kept us marching with our heads held high, oblivious to what we were to face.

It was like the pass suddenly exploded. Horrible screeches filled the air as we suddenly found ourselves surrounded. Gargoyles, spiders, wolves, misshapen eyes beset us from the crags above. Skeletons and corpses reanimated before us. We had been surrounded almost immediately. Hell itself had closed its maw around us. I hardly had time to raise my weapon before a revenant lunged at me with its putrid claws.

Every second spent in that battle was agonizing. I tried to block out what I could, focus only on the battles before me, but… that proved impossible. Every sense was being assailed. I had hardly seen such wretched creatures so close before, and their smell nearly made me vomit, but… those were not the worst of it.

The sounds. Dear gods, the sounds. The horrible wails, both of monsters and men, will surely haunt me in my sleep. The  _ sounds _ everything made while moving - the sloughing of rotten flesh on the undead, the screeches of the gargoyles, the ceaseless rattles of the skeletons. The squelching sound a spear made as it pierced a monstrous eyeball, followed by the inhuman roar of pain. The tortured screams of a dying man as a spider sinks its fangs into his abdomen and begins to liquefy his inside while he is still alive.

Even now I find these sounds replaying endlessly in my mind. Like they are all still surrounding me. Like I can still see myself reaching out, unable to help the dead and dying. 

There was a young man I had made friends with in my unit, around my age. The night before the march we passed the time by talking. We found much in common. We both joined the military not long ago because we believed in something. We believed in our country, in King Vigarde. We continued to share stories by the campfire. He told me his name.

I've forgotten it. I don't remember its sound.

The sound I remember is that of him being torn apart by a wolf as he begged an unhearing god for mercy. He was one among dozens. We lost so many.

Eventually we repelled the monstrosities. I don't even know how. Everything was a blur of viscera and death. Who knows how long it was, just that we kept fighting and fighting until there was nothing left to fight. Afterwards we took stock of our losses. No one had much to say. All we could do was survey the carnage, scattered pieces of armor serving as our best option to identify our own among the mass grave that was our battlefield.

Burials for our losses were suggested. On its own it was a daunting enough task, with some of the fallen hardly having anything left to bury. Some had already started to salvage the remains. I couldn't. Maybe it was cowardly, but… I couldn't.

It was not long before our captain spoke up. He told us we had no time to spend on burying our dead. That we would have to come back for them. That King Vigarde needed our mission to be done as soon as possible. That the sun would begin to set and we would have to risk camping out another night if we failed to reach the village by sundown.

A pall followed suit. Everyone knew he was right. But no one wanted to just leave their companions the way they were.

But we had to. We could not delay. We had a mission from the king himself. 

We could not take the time.

Looking back, I wish we had. Maybe it would have changed things. But maybe I'm just being naive.

The day was winding down when we finally arrived at the village. It reminded me much of our own, Mother. Quaint. Homey. Lots of families. I had only hoped that if war was indeed coming, our efforts to fortify would keep them safe through it all. It's what I envisioned myself doing when I enlisted. 

I'm sure we were not the most inviting sight to behold; many of us still had splatters of blood on our armor from the previous battle, too stubborn to be scrubbed off during a hasty march. Even then we were expecting a fair reception as soldiers of Grado. We had given them notice a week prior. In my mind, we had done everything right. I only thought of what we would have done at home in the same position. We had no reason to refuse, right?

It was while thinking these things that we arrived at the village. We were all exhausted. Expecting reprieve. Looking to rest among those with whom we shared a country.

We did not find any of that, Mother.

I wish the encounter with the monsters had been the worst ordeal of today.

It was not that the village was surprised by our arrival; quite the opposite, even. They had clearly received our advance notice. We had hoped this would mean clean beds prepared for us.

Instead we found a row of lances pointed at us, held by nearly every able-bodied man and woman in the village. Some…

I think some were even younger than me.

No one left in our unit knew what to do. A silence fell over everything, the approaching dusk eerily quiet.

A man from the village broke the silence with angry shouting. He told us that we were not wanted, that we had no right to occupy their village. That even if war was coming, they could take care of themselves. That they trusted their own before they trusted Vigarde. That the king never cared about their village until he could swarm it with soldiers.

He asked where we were when monsters attacked last year. Or the bandits the year before that. They sought assistance from Vigarde before only to be met with silence. 

Mother, I thought of our own village. I enlisted as a soldier because I wanted to prevent what had happened to us from happening to others. I wanted to ensure no one else would lose a mother.

  
  


If this supposed war was not on the horizon, Mother, would I even be at a village like this? Or would I simply reside in the barracks, endlessly training while the villages of Grado had to fend for themselves within a nation that swore to protect them?

Our captain barked his retorts. We had not come this far and lost so many men just to be turned away. This was for the villagers’ own good. 

The grip on my lance tightened from nerves as he continued. 

How dare the villagers defy orders from King Vigarde, our captain said.

Venom had crept into his voice.

Rage.

I found myself shocked by the captain’s words. I have to wonder how many in our units felt the same. In training he had never been this venomous to us. Harsh, strict, to be sure, but that was to be expected in military training. He drilled us to get us in the best of shape.

But no one had ever defied him like this man from the village. So his true colors never had reason to surface.

Maybe this was why he was our leader.

The shouting between the two only grew louder and louder. I stood in formation, unease and dread manifesting like never before. 

My shaken faith prevented me from hearing much of anything else in the heated exchange. But I remember clearly the orders from the captain that came as a result. I doubt I will ever forget.

“Kill all who defy us.”

Everything froze. Neither the villagers nor my fellow soldiers wanted to believe what they had just heard.

The order came again. Alongside the rage… I believe there was a fear behind it. The fear that comes when you know failure would mean your end upon your return to those above you.

I looked to the soldiers next to me. They had the same hesitation I held. A small comfort.

The villagers held their ground.

I do not remember exactly who attacked first nor what incited the battle. I try and visualize what came next and I am only met with a hazy void. I remember charging and my lance finding flesh, hearing echoes of the sickening screams from the battle with the monsters. I remember mumbling to myself… Justifications for what was taking place.

By fortifying this village, more lives would be saved in the end.

The opposition here would give up quickly in the face of trained soldiers.

I was doing my duty to Grado and the king as a soldier.

That…

That if it was not them, it would be me.

That is what I told myself as I fought.

…”Fought” and “battle” are far too generous of words. It was a slaughter, a massacre.

**_We killed them all._ **

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I sit here and write to you, dearest Mother, in a chair that is not mine, on a desk that is not mine, in a house that is not mine. Some would call it spoils of war. We indeed secured a place to rest tonight. We had an outpost to fortify for the incoming war.

We had accomplished our mission. 

I wonder again, Mother, why I am writing this letter to you. It will not prevent me from endlessly replaying the events of today in my mind. I do not know how or even if sleep will come to me. Perhaps… I do not deserve it.

Maybe I think this letter is just some hollow attempt at atonement. That by writing this, I can begin to absolve myself of the crimes I enacted in the name of my country as I slaughtered its people. It makes me wonder how many letters General Duessel has written and what they contain, what he has seen or even done himself. I wonder who he has written to and what he has described. If I ever make it back… I must ask him myself.

Dearest Mother…

I know not where you are or if you can see me.

Or even if you can bear to look upon me any more.

I am not asking you to be proud of me.

For enlisting, for fighting, for succeeding.

I am asking you to forgive me.

  
  
  


Your Dearest,

\- Amelia

**Author's Note:**

> A zine piece I wrote for the Calamity's Advent zine from Invincible Zine! It's a massive (350+ pages) collection of horror in Fire Emblem works, a theme I find massively under-explored. Additionally, as Sacred Stones is my favorite Fire Emblem game, I wanted to write a piece for one of my favorite characters (Amelia) as I find her similarly under-explored. So here she has some good ol' fashioned trauma to go through.
> 
> The full zine can be found at https://twitter.com/InvincibleZine/status/1290290668787695616?s=20


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